A New World Born
by Rahmi
Summary: Wanderings around Ivalice.
1. Westersand

_I'm hoping to do a chapter for each of the areas of FFXII. We shall see how it goes. This chapter is the Westersands; Basch is still with them because I usually run around with the four characters for a bit before returning to Rabanastre._

* * *

Vaan keeps glancing at the good captain when he believes no one to be looking. Unfortunately for both Vaan and Balthier's nerves, the churl is far from subtle, once going so far as to trip on a rock whilst gawping. It is beginning to grate on what few nerves the Dalmascan sun hasn't fried.

"Vaan," he snaps when the boy almost flattens a wandering cactite, "If you would be so kind as to scout ahead for danger?" He wants him out of his sight, and fon Rosenburg out of Vaan's. This seems to be as good a way as any.

The look Vaan slides him from under his eyelashes is not nearly as clueless as Balthier thinks it should be. "Alright," he says, "But I'm taking any loot I find, then, and I'm not sharing it."

Balthier waves him away. Frankly, at this point in time he's much more likely to kill the whelp for the water skin at his belt than he is for any wolf pelt. "The spoils of war are yours."

"Awesome," Vaan murmurs. He turns away. A piece of still wriggling flesh falls off his shoulder and splatters against the sand.

The fact that his nose does not wrinkle is merely the result of very good breeding. He hadn't known he had any particular squeamishness in him until he watched Vaan grimly hack the head and arms off a zombie so he could take its armor.

He steps over the bit of festering flesh, cursing the feel of hot sand against his heels. If he had but known he'd be trekking through the desert, he would have worn more sensible footwear.

Balthier catches Vaan glancing at his feet with something like amusement and begins to calculate where he can shoot the whelp without incapacitating him completely. The boy's eyes narrow in a sudden smile before he scrambles up over the nearest sand dune and disappears from sight.

"A mistake, that," Fran says.

Balthier dabs at the sweat on his upper lip with his last clean handkerchief. "I am rather hoping he is eaten by a wolf," he confides, "Or at least pecked unmercifully by a cockatrice."

fon Rosenburg gives a breathless laugh from the rear. Balthier does not spare the man a glance; the way he's breathing makes him wonder whether the man will make it to Rabanastre at all, but there isn't a thing to be done for it. He's certainly not going to carry him.

That would be unsightly.

The damned Dalmasca sun continues to beat down on his exposed skin. Balthier can feel a sunburn prickling his flesh even through his (very fine) shirt. Nightfall could not come quickly enough.

By the time Vaan dances back into view, Balthier is much too tired to ask where he could have possibly picked up the massive bow strapped across his back. Vaan doesn't offer anything so mundane as an explanation, instead pressing prickly green fruit into his hands.

"Here," he says, glancing up at the sky with a squint. "We should probably stop soon. It's gonna get dark. And I think I saw a Gnoma forming a couple of miles away, so we should find cover before the sandstorm hits."

Balthier has met entites before. As long as you let them go about their business, they were more than happy to do the same for you; however, he was willing to bow to greater wisdom even if it fell like pearls from a swine's mouth. He had never been caught in a Rabanastran storm.

From the startled, wary way fon Ronsenburg suddenly holds himself, the man had. And hadn't particularly appreciated the experience. That was more than enough for Balthier.

Still, there was the matter of the fruit in his hands. He turns it over to examine all angles, rubbing the dusty imprints of Vaan's fingertips away with a swipe of his thumb. "I thought you were refraining from sharing your spoils?" he asks.

The fruit is surprisingly giving, lush with water when Balthier presses an experimental finger into its soft flesh.

Grey eyes drag down from the sky to regard him frankly. Vaan shrugs and hesitantly gives both Basch and Fran two a piece. "You guys aren't used to the desert," he says, "The fruit'll help. You're almost out of water, right?"

"Cactus fruit," Basch says wonderingly, "It has been long since I had this treat." He digs his fingers into the fruit and pulls off its skin in one easy motion, discarding the green peel on the sand in favor of the deep red flesh.

Balthier observes him and critically thinks that the juice will stain his sleeves as red as Vaan's mouth. "And where did you get these?"

Vaan draws his lower lip into his mouth to deliver a contemplative chew. "You probably don't wanna know, okay?" he finally says. "You Empire guys get kind of weird about some of our food."

Which is as good an admission that the familiar shape is, in fact, what Balthier thinks it is. He's eaten much worse, though, and he grits his teeth at the thought of the liquid in the fruit, pricks it with his perfectly manicured nails, and stains his cuffs.

"Oh," Vaan says when they've begun to move again and the first breath of wind flutters Balthier's red stained sleeves, "Here, Fran."

He hands over the bow without the slightest hint of hesitation. Fran takes it and runs her fingers over the red curves of it, eyebrows rising behind her snowfall of hair. "You give this to me?" she asks.

Vaan shrugs his shoulders and scratches at the back of his head. "I don't know how to use them," he says, and, "I think I kind of ruined the string, but I figured you'd know if you could use it or something."

Balthier is no archer, but even he can see the surprisingly perfect symmetry of the weapon. It's curved length is more powerful than the small bow Fran usually carries on their adventures and he, very grudgingly, allows approval to shine through his eyes for a few moments.

Typically, Vaan has already turned away and does not see.

* * *

The path Vaan leads them down ends in a cavern pushed into the sandstone cliffs. It is a simple dead-end, perhaps a dozen feet deep, dark and cool when Balthier pushes in. Vaan shakes sand out of his hair from the sandstorm even Balthier can now see brewing, dirt and grit and sand swirling through the air gently.

"We'll need to block the entrance," Basch murmurs.

Fran pauses in the act of running her claws against her scalp. "We've no cloth to spare," she says, "But the pelts should do."

"The sandstorm will ruin them," Balthier warns even as Vaan shakes them out from the tight bundled roll he'd had on his shoulder.

"Yeah, well," Vaan says, "You ever seen what a sandstorm can do to a person? I know a guy who doesn't have a face anymore because he got caught in a really bad one. This is small stuff compared to that."

They manage to jury rig a door on their little slice of stuffy, cool heaven using bits of sharp metal wriggled from Vaan's pocketful of iron scraps. Basch leans against the wall to stretch out what must be a terrific leg cramp after years of inactivity, seemingly not minding being plunged back into the dark.

Fran's eyes catch and reflect the bit of light filtering through the musty dampness of pelts. "A sky pirate in a warren," she says, "Like a dreamhare, hiding."

Balthier catches her eye and scowls. "Please, Fran," he murmurs back, eyes straining. "This is a temporary setback."

"Sometimes the sandstorms last for a day or two," Vaan offers, unsolicited. He is absently eating whatever else he'd been carrying around in his pouch, taking a swig of water every now and again. "The Gnoma was kind of small, though, so it should be gone soon."

"You know much of the desert," Basch offers into the silence.

There is a sound like a peasant chewing with his mouth open and swallowing ungracefully. "I grew up here," he says. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I've been lead to believe that Rabanastre is protected from these minor inconveniences," Balthier says. A particularly strong gust of wind pelts their fur door until it bows in obscenely. "Quaint."

"After the Empire came, there was never enough food in the city for us," Vaan mutters into his knees. He tilts his face in the gloom, dusty cheek resting on equally dusty knee, and rolls one shoulder back. "A lot of the kids started scavenging out in the desert for food. Fruit and stuff, wolf meat. The rats taste better, though."

That statement certainly gives Balthier a better idea of what Vaan has been snacking on. He is suddenly very glad he did not demand a share when his stomach rumbled a handful of hours ago. "That does seem to be the way of the Empire," he says vaguely.

He can make out Basch in the darkness, palms pressed flat to the ground as he leans forward. "The people are starving?" he asks like he doesn't have signs of starvation written all over his too thin face.

"Nah," Vaan says after a moment. "Just some of the people in Lowtown. The ones that can't go up and work 'cause they're not pretty enough or something. The orphans. The old people. We kind of band together to get everyone mostly fed."

Mostly fed is nowhere near the caliber of fed to health, Balthier knows. Vaan has a perpetually hungry look to his face, pinched around the eyes, slightly too much whipcord muscle and not enough of the baby fat that should still be clinging to his cheeks, Dalmascan legal or not. Such is the plight of orphans in war.

They wait out the storm.


	2. Estersand

_I tend to get Balthier and Vaan together in about twenty different ways. Here's one set in the Estersand before the trip to the Nam Yensa._

The Nebra River shimmers like a gemstone in an inferior setting; the sun on the water just serves to further exaggerate the differences between dull sand and glittering river shore. Balthier shades a hand against the sunlight to appreciate the sight. It's been a long few days in the desert and their water is running low.

They are following up on a Hunt out in the desert before the trek to the Nam Yensa. Balthier is beginning to regret leaving the lush confines of Rabanastre.

"A jewel in the desert, water is called," Fran says. "Though decidedly more precious to her people than stone."

"I've never been out this far," Vaan says. His eyes are glued to the river when Balthier glances his way. "It doesn't smell as bad as the water in Lowtown."

Balthier drops his hand and sighs. "I daresay this river is not used as a latrine quite so often." The people of Lowtown did not seem to grasp the fundamental idea that one should not... defecate in the same water source that one drank and bathed in. As a result, the water in Rabanastre was a festering plague waiting to occur.

"Hey, it all runs through the sewers anyway." Vaan shrugs out of his vest, sword dropping down on top of the discarded garment. "I'm going to go wash some of this stuff off, alright? Don't leave me here."

Vaan is coated in blood and assorted grime, most of it not his own. There's a particular stretch of skin in the middle of his back that Balthier has been staring at in horror for a good forty minutes; he cannot decide if the organ mashed into the churl's clothing is a heart, a spleen, or the remnants of a lung. It's particularly loathsome when combined with the long streak of excrement from where an unlucky bow shot split a wolf's bowel just as Vaan ran past.

Quite frankly, Balthier has never met a person more in need of a good bath than Vaan, including Jules and assorted other miscreants.

"We'll wait," Balthier says magnanimously.

Vaan leans forward to peel his boots off. "You should probably wash down too," he says innocently, "You kind of smell like the back end of a chocobo after that cockatrice got you."

He would very much like to be incredulous over Vaan comparing him to an odiferous bird, but at this point the sheer tactless idiocy that Vaan spews has become common place. As it is, he raises an eyebrow at Fran, silently asking her opinion as Vaan cheerfully strips down with a lack of anything approaching decency.

"The stench is becoming overwhelming," Fran admits, "Like an ill-wind born in the Feywood."

"Did you just compare me to a malboro passing gas?"

"She did," Vaan says, "And she's right. So come on."

Balthier stares at Fran until he feels she is sufficiently chastised (he is ignoring the smirk curling her mouth, for her sake), then mournfully sets his gun to the sand. He doesn't know when he last stripped and swam in a river as opposed to the civilized man's bath, but he can admit that even he can smell the need for it. His fine shirt is practically brown with old blood.

He leaves his under things on, for modesty's sake. He is certainly no Dalmascan peasant to risk exposing himself to a village maiden out for a stroll.

The churl, on the other hand, is naked as a newborn babe, splashing quite happily in the shallows of the river. Balthier shakes his head. "Do Dalmascan's lack the basic virtue of modesty?" he queries.

"Huh?"

"Why are you naked in public, Vaan?"

"Why're you trying to get clean wearing dirty clothes? That's sort of stupid, Balthier." Vaan tucks his hands behind his head and rocks back on his heels, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that the water is barely tickling his thighs. "It's not like I'm deformed or anything."

Balthier wades out into the river's gentle current and resists the urge to dunk the boy. "The presence of a lady should be determent enough."

Vaan's eyes skip from him to Fran before he shrugs. "She doesn't seem to care," he points out, and throws himself backwards into the water.

"I do not find humes so attractive as to be concerned with their nudity," Fran says in the moment before Vaan resurfaces, shaking his head like a wet pup. "You have missed a spot, Vaan. I advise you entreat Balthier to remedy it."

The churl turns grey eyes on him, sizing him up. Balthier does his best to ignore his traitor of a partner and the boy slowly shuffling towards him; he knows now he should have kept his grudging appreciation of Vaan's body to himself. Fran has always been a bit of a romantic.

It does not help that Vaan is clean for the first time since he laid eyes on him, with water sliding down his skin in most enticing ways. His hair has darkened from nearly colorless blond to the same lackluster hue as the desert sand, but it is more than made up for by the way the water is bringing out the color of his eyes.

He's a beautiful boy, make no mistake about that.

A beautiful boy who suddenly clambers onto Balthier's back, crowing with delight. "Gotcha," he says, "You need to pay more attention, what if I'd been a gator or something?"

Balthier closes his eyes in frustration and firmly tells himself that just because he can feel Vaan's manhood pressed against him does not mean it is an invitation to tilt the churl onto the shore and take him in the sand. For one thing, Fran would insufferably correct his technique. For another, he has only once been so stupid as to make love on sand and never again.

"Vaan," he says very carefully, "If you value your hide at all, you will get down. Immediately."

Golden brown arms drape themselves across his chest as Vaan's head nuzzles his own. "Nah," he says, "I'm pretty comfortable. The water's cold by yourself."

"Vaan. Now."

"Nope." Hands scrub into his hair, damp with sand clinging to the digits, before Vaan slides insidiously down his back and presses a hot face into his shoulder. "You do know that even most Dalmascans don't really run around naked in front of non-desert people, right?"

Balthier pauses in the midst of cocking his elbow for a devastating blow to the ribs. "No," he says, "I didn't."

"Yeah. Fran said it'd probably be the easiest way to get your attention, though. You ignore me a lot." A hand runs down his flank before cheerfully heading inwards; the water, however, is chilly and while Balthier jumps, he does not… otherwise react.

"Fran," he says flatly, eyeing the viera even as his traitorous body relaxes against the solid one at his back. "You've spoken to Fran about this."

She flicks an ear at him and smiles with all her teeth from the shoreline. "For a leading man," she says, "You can be remarkably short-sighted. Perhaps as dense as a supporting roll."

He is distracted from stomping through the water towards his partner by Vaan leaning heavily into him and saying, "There's supposed to be a village a near here. There'll probably let us have a tent." He leans over Balthier's shoulder to catch his eye. "I'm not messing around with someone in the sand again."

"You're assuming we're going to be 'messing around.'" Balthier says. He slides away from Vaan's wet embrace.

Vaan squints. "Did the naked thing not work? Fran helped me come up with this scarf thing if this didn't work."

Despite himself, Balthier pauses on the shore, his filthy shirt in his hands. "Scarves?" he asks faintly. He has a fatal weakness for scarves and handkerchiefs. Damn Fran anyway for knowing of it.

"A dance," Fran murmurs to him. "It is most enthralling."

Vaan smiles slowly, standing naked in the water with his hands on his hips. "Wanna see?"

Balthier can do nothing but agree.


	3. Tomb of Raithwall

_Another get together, this time set in the Tomb of Raithwall. I tend to get my armor from undead rather than pay for it, if anyone's wondering why poor Vaan is always running around with bits of zombie on him._

* * *

"Hold still!" Balthier barks. "Stop wriggling."

Vaan screws up his face like a sulky child. "I can do it myself," he mutters, making another attempt for Balthier's filthy handkerchief.

"Of course you can. You certainly did a good enough job of it the first time around, now didn't you?" He scrubs at a particularly stubborn smear of oil on the boy's cheek, careful of the new pink skin, and sends Vaan a thoroughly unimpressed look.

It'd shaved years off his life, turning to avoid the zombie's fire spell only to see a startled Vaan literally _go up in flames._ The water spell Fran had spent an entire evening drumming into both his and the idiot's skulls in that first weary, waterless trek across the Estersand had been the only thing that kept the boy from being a flambéed meal for the dead.

As it is, Vaan is soaking wet, shaking and covered _still_ in a massive quantity of oil in this underground tomb. There's also the small matter of him being pinned to a wall with Balthier crowded between his knees, but, really, that is just to keep the churl stationary.

"I didn't know _that_ would happen!" Vaan protests.

His handkerchief is so sodden it's leaving streaks of watery oil in its wake. Balthier pauses a moment to admire a particularly fetching rainbow smear on Vaan's chest before he drops the soiled linen and digs among his pouches for a fresh one. "Surely you've played with oil and fire before, Vaan?" he asks, genuinely curious.

Vaan gives him a strange look. "No," he says, "Why would anybody want to play with fire and oil? That's stupid. There's better stuff to do than sitting around setting things on fire." He makes another half-hearted swipe for the new handkerchief, which Balthier keeps out of his reach by the simple expedient of holding it over the boy's head.

"I suppose these 'better things to do' didn't involve learning what happened when one mixed oil with fire?" If his fingers catch and linger on the boy's nipples through the fine, thin cloth, well. They've already established that Vaan's something of an incognizant fool.

The grin Vaan gives him is two parts self-satisfied and one part pure coquettish charm. "Nah," he says. "But they were a lot more fun."

Balthier refrains from blinking stupidly at the damnable boy's open smile and makes a noise of agreement. "There are things far more entertaining, I'll give you that."

While Vaan's busy smiling up at him, Balthier switches his handkerchief to his other hand and reaches out.

Balthier gets a grip on the slick blond hair and wrenches the boy's head to the side amid loud and pointed protests. There's still a bit of oil clinging stubbornly to the curve of Vaan's neck, dripping black into the hollow between his collarbones.

He raises his eyes to the low hanging ceiling for a moment in a plea for the strength and fortitude _not_ to pounce on what amounts to little more than a dirty orphan in a dead king's tomb. It's simply unseemly.

"I'd rather not be forced to explain to Penelo how you came to ruin your pretty face while under my care," he tells Vaan.

Vaan's nose wrinkles. "What?" he asks.

He obediently leans his head back to allow Balthier better access to his throat and Balthier most certainly does not think about leaning forward to lick just there. Vaan's filthy, for one, covered in the remains of the Tallow he'd _insisted_ on carving up with that new sword he'd almost killed himself getting, and he stinks more than a little of the unlucky undead he'd pried his current armor off of two rooms back.

For another, Balthier has _lauded_ self control, dammit, and he can refrain from seducing a clueless, graceless, tactless sky pirate aspirant.

Not that Vaan is particularly helping in this matter, leaning back on his hands and offering his chest up to Balthier's questing hands and, clearly, no one has ever taught the boy not to let relative strangers grope him in the name of first aid.

"You think I'm pretty?" Vaan asks after a few seconds. He's scowling up at the ceiling when Balthier tears his eyes away from the tantalizing stretch of dirty skin.

Oh, how far his tastes have fallen. Was a time he wouldn't have looked twice at this dirty street hume, pretty, round Dalmascan face and all. He'd had decidedly less plebian tastes. "Pleasing enough," he tells Vaan. How his father would laugh to see him now.

"What about handsome?" Vaan presses. He picks at a spot of oil Balthier hasn't got to yet, his fingers painting slick trails on his desert dark skin and Balthier has to heave a sigh of absolute misery because, honestly. There wasn't a soul alive who could be this _imbecilic_ and live, was there?

"Please," Balthier says, "Handsome is for the leading man. The damsel in distress is merely 'pretty.' Not as pretty as the actual princess, certainly," that's a lie, if he were to be strictly truthful; Ashe is surprisingly plain for the princess of such a beautiful people, "But fetching just the same."

"_Damsel in distress?_"

Balthier raises one eyebrow, silently daring Vaan to protest. _He_ certainly hadn't been the one to require assistance against the Urutan-Yensa, nor had he been the one extracted, half-dead and unconscious, from the cold embrace of a lich. The boy was a trouble magnet, which, while a stroke of luck for the rest of the party, was rather unpleasant for the Rabanastran himself.

He makes another pass over dark skin with his sodden handkerchief while he waits for Vaan to think of something else to say.

"Well, thanks, I guess," he says, grudgingly. "For the compliment. Don't say it again, okay? Especially not in front of Penelo."

Reminded of the boy's absent perhaps lover, Balthier clears his throat and looks down at the skin he's been scoring clean. There's still a trace or three of oil on Vaan, but he's confidant that remainder won't cause him to flame as merrily as the tallows they'd been massacring an hour ago.

He drops the handkerchief and backs away from Vaan before he can do anything unbefitting of a leading man. Such as beg. Or pin a brainless idiot to a wall and kiss him senseless while the rest of the party was resting just outside the room and there might or might not have been a horde of undead starting to peak impatiently around doorless hallways.

"You're clean," Balthier announces.

Vaan stares up at him from the floor. "That's it?" he asks.

"I would think you'd be glad to be done with the experience," Balthier says, "You certainly complained enough."

Vaan stretches and tugs his newly acquired armor back into place, squinting up at Balthier. "Really? That's it? Penelo said..." he trails off.

"And what did your intrepid maiden friend have to say about any of this?"

The boy shrugs again. He pulls uncomfortably at the recently purloined shirt; Balthier can see festering bits of flesh still wriggling on it and knows he is lost when even _that_ does not make his libido lie down and admit defeat.

The rather fetching blush starting to work its way down from the boys cheeks to his throat is not helping in the slightest.

Balthier tilts his head to the side and motions with one hand to hurry along the forthcoming explanation. "I'm waiting," he says when the boy just goes progressively redder.

"Nothin'," Vaan finally says, heaving himself to his feet. He's particularly graceless about it all, stumbling into the wall and muttering something nasty under his breath before he catches himself. "She's just being a weird girl, okay?"

"That was remarkably unenlightening," Balthier informs him dryly.

"She said some stuff and I thought..." Vaan trails off and darts a glance up at him through sinfully long lashes. "Never mind, c'mon, I wanna go kill some stuff. Gotta try out this new sword," and he bends down to scoop up said sword.

"None of that," Balthier says chidingly. He places his hands on his hips to keep them from reaching out for the boy and watches Vaan's fingers spin 'round the handle of his weapon until he catches the rather lewd thoughts running through his mind.

Nimble thief fingers had to be good in bed, now didn't they?

"Penelo reads too many of those ten gil novels." Vaan twirls his sword once more before sliding it into his makeshift scabbard. "Just forget it, okay? I'll tell her she's crazy when we catch up."

It takes a moment or two for his flushed mind to spit out exactly _what_ ten gil novels usually deal with (as opposed to the more regular five gil travesties, with the big breasted sighing maidens and the simpering dark haired fools on the cover). He lets the information sink in and eyes the back of Vaan's blond head as the imbecile scratches irritably at his skin.

The churl simply has to be joking. Balthier prides himself on his powers of observation, dammit, and he'd have _known_ if something had been on offer. "Are you _jesting_?" Balthier asks.

Vaan turns around to blink at him. "No?" he says. "Why're you still back there? C'mon, let's go."

"Just a moment," Balthier says, holding up one finger. "Am I to understand that you are considering acts Penelo has read in-"

"The Sky Pirate and His Eunuch," Vaan supplies helpfully.

"Yes, thank you. You are contemplating acts from the Sky Pirate and His Eunuch with myself?"

"No," Vaan says. Balthier feels himself deflate and thinks that he'd better stop staring then, hadn't he? "That'd be dumb. I'm not a eunuch. But Penelo said that she thought you might want to and I kind of want to only I think you don't really want to. So let's go kill stuff." He turns away.

Balthier likes to think that he's not altogether responsible for his next actions.

Vaan makes a very surprising noise when Balthier grabs him. Fairly high pitched, for a male, and Balthier makes a mental note to tease him about puberty later, then mentally scratches that particular thought out with a tiny shudder. Seventeen was Dalmascan legal, dammit, and he was going to enjoy it without feeling like a degenerate.

"A sky pirate," he tells Vaan grandly, backing him up until he's once again leaning against the chill crumbling wall, "Has no need of subtly. Next time, just ask."

"I wasn't being subtle!" Vaan presses one hand to Balthier's chest and pushes, scowling up at him. "Did you really think I'd let just anybody grope me like that?" he asks.

"Well, no." Balthier ducks his head to drift his lips across the boy's forehead, for it's the cleanest part of him and he honestly has no desire to bed Vaan in the middle of all this crumbling grandeur. Or, a bit of desire, but that desire was rapidly waning beneath the combined smell of undead flesh and gore. "I thought, and rightly so, that you are a dimwit."

Vaan's forehead wrinkles under Balthier's mouth. "You're the only idiot here," he huffs. "Took you _forever._"

Balthier will admit, in the privacy of his own mind, that if he had been at a hundred percent and _not_ frustrated from watching a perky ass wander through the desert for the last week, it might have donned on him sooner. However, he has appearances to maintain and he certainly can't let a street orphan insult him.

"If you hadn't shown yourself to be predisposed to both obliviousness and outright stupidity, along with a distinct lack of self-preservation, perhaps I would have known sooner."

"Whatever," Vaan says. "You're blind and Penelo was right. I owe her the next ether we find."

Their first proper kiss comes when Balthier threads an exasperated hand into the blond's untidy mop of hair, tilts that complaining mouth up, and silences it with his own. Vaan tastes more than vaguely of oil and obviously has never been taught the joy of keeping one's teeth clean, but it's a good kiss, for all of that, just wet enough and hard enough to satisfy the slow simmer of lust roiling in his stomach.

"Alright," he says, stepping back. He pulls an unsoiled handkerchief out of his pouch to wipe his mouth on and watches as Vaan simply swipes the heel of his hand across his lips. "Now we may eradicate monsters."

"I get any treasure we find," Vaan says cheerfully.

He catches Vaan's wrist when the boy slips around him, smiling huge and unsightly. "Try not to get yourself oiled again," he says.

Vaan grins. "I won't if you won't."

Balthier thinks about standing still while Vaan wipes him down, hands maybe lingering, and weighs that with the thought of soiled cuffs and a ruined shirt. Not much of a choice after all. "Not all of us are so stupid," he says.

"Quit calling me stupid. At least I know when someone's hitting on me."


	4. Henne Mines

_I wrote this to correspond with the end game version of the Henne Mines. It's Balthier/Vaan, and it contains a brainchild of mine: I sort of wondered what the point of the esper's sigils were in-game, and ended up making them act as tattoos for some reason. I hope it makes sense in the fic. Also, I'm not overly fond of Ashe, which comes through, but I'm not outright bashing her either, I don't think._

* * *

"I will take it," Ashe declares.

Balthier does not point out that their fair princess has taken the last _three_ espers they've come across and that, at this point, she's beginning to resemble a twenty gil trollop. The black ink spiralling around her arms is decidely tacky in its excess.

He is morbidly curious as to whether the newest one shall cover her bared stomach.

Their orphan boy looks up from where he's digging enthusiastically through what is either the remains of an earlier Etem dogfight, or a dead mage. Balthier isn't sure which it is, to be quite honest; the churl has less compunction over stealing from the dead than most sky pirates do.

They are bloody and half-beaten, but they are alive and the fickle esper they'd disturbed is contained, spinning slowly as it waits for their decision. It is a good time to steal from the dead.

"Whatever," Vaan says, "Not like I want all that on my skin. Do you know how hard it'd be to steal when all they'd have to do is say, 'Yeah, that guy, the one with the big esper tattoo!'?"

Ashe turns to stare at Vaan with the look of a noble faced with something extremely distasteful. "Not all are concerned with a life of thievery," she says.

"But some of us are," Vaan returns easily. He does not glance up from his treasure again, well-versed in the foilibles of royalty by now; he had learned quickly that Ashelia b'nargin Dalmasca was more than half scared child and less than a quarter queen.

Instead, Balthier watches as the boy sets aside a book that looks older than the mines themselves. "When you got a second, Balthier, can you read that and lemme know if it's worth anything?"

A leading man does not poke fun of a commoner's inability to read. "Of course," Balthier murmurs, "Though I daresay I will need a bath afterwards."

"Thanks." The smile he's flashed is dirty, exhausted, and charming for all of that. It is not so much that Vaan cannot read, as that he struggles with anything but the most rudimentary of hunting bills.

The price of a country in decline, Balthier thinks, and politely gives Ashe the attention she's waiting for. She has an exhibitionist's streak in her, the princess. He's never seen her accept an esper if someone is not watching raptly with bated breath.

"Esper," Ashe calls, "I summon thee." She raises one arm to the spinning sigil and it flares black light.

The gravity of the situation is ruined slightly by the fact that Vaan's much abused katana is still sticking straight out of the ground two feet from Ashe's royal person. Balthier squints in the light to make out Vaan's slight figure, not paying the slightest bit of attention, and so misses what happens next.

"What trickery?" Ashe murmurs, affronted.

Balthier shoots a look at her, then turns to face her fully. The esper's sigil is still rotating slowly in the air, the esper himself a ghostly apparation behind it. It gives Ashe an unimpressed look from one serpent yellow eye and opens its great maw.

"No," he says. Balthier finds himself rather startled to hear a child's petulant whine in its voice.

"I have defeated you!" Ashe says. ("We," Vaan mutters from his dusty corner.) "You must obey me!"

"Not you," the esper says liltingly. Its teeth are like daggers in its mouth as it slowly turns its head, regarding the three of them. Vaan still has not looked up from his loot, Balthier notes, and is amused despite himself. "Beloved of the Occuria are you, child of kings, and Occuria we do not serve. To you we shall not bind."

Ashe breathes harshly through her nose. "You judge me for what others have laid before me?" she asks.

"Yes," the esper says, "As is our place. By our laws are the Occuria anathemas to the gods, false gods themselves. We shall not bind to their Hand."

Ah, curiouser and curiouser. "False gods, did you say?"

"Mewling infants, undying, fashioned by the High Seraph's traitorous hand." The esper tilts its head again, considering, "We alone hold sway over right and wrong, ever Ivalice's souls to guard."

There's a general stir behind him as Vaan clambers to his feet. "Why do you sound like a kid?" he asks. He wraps both hands around his katana and heaves; Balthier reaches out a hand to steady him so he does not end up on his (rather fetching) rear.

The esper's tail twitches. "Feared by the gods, we are bound as a child evermore, to carry out our duty with eyes unclouded."

"That stinks," Vaan offers. He slings his katana across his shoulders and rubs a hand across his nose, streaking dirt. "Kind of stupid, though. They made you, right? Why would they be scared of you?"

Balthier hands a handerkerchief over to the boy when he fusses at his nose again. Picking dried blood out of his nostrils was one of Vaan's few habits that even he found foul. "I think," he murmurs sotto voice as Ashe fumes, "That you are rather forgetting what our battle was like."

"Well, yeah," Vaan says, "But if _we_ could defeat him, the gods should be able to do it, easy. They defeated the twelve dark espers, right? So they're just being mean to not let him grow up."

"That is not the issue," Ashe interrupts. "I have not made my decision on whether to follow the Occuria's path or not. Surely you can bind to me."

The esper rears back and opens its maw further to display teeth that are, frankly, more daunting than any Balthier has seen before. "Insult us not, Occuria's Chosen. Touched by their foul deeds you have been, reeking of their machinations always. We shall not prostrate ourselves to one who blindly follows the commandments of false-gods."

It turns its face to regard Balthier next. "Touched by the traitors," it pipes, "You wear their sigils on your skin. Nay, we shall not bind to you."

Chaos stirs in the back of Balthier's mind. His sigil itches between his shoulder blades, but Balthier only smiles. "I admit I am relieved," he tells the esper and it throws back its serpentine head and laughs, high and piping like a child.

At last it turns to Vaan and Balthier is not precisely surprised when its inhuman eyes soften. Vaan stares back, nonplussed, as Ashe hisses curses beneath her breath.

There is silence in this little deadend cave. The hum of magicite is already dieing now that the esper fueling it has been unsealed and taken. He gives it another fifty years or so before it is as exhausted as the Lhusu Mines.

The esper twitches to of its ludicrously tiny feet and its sigil lights up again, rotating slowly.

"Unworthy of the Occuria," it murmurs to Vaan, "Cast aside in favor of a child more tractile, born under the sign of the Knight-Star." It twirls like a snake shedding its skin. "Unmarked by the traitors are you, and so you shall be our voice in this world, to summon us how you see fit."

Vaan is mometarily stunned into stupified silence. He would treasure it, if Ashe's eyes weren't narrowing dangerously, her mouth already open to argue with a creature eons older than herself. Balthier, at times, admires their plucky heroine for her gall. When she goes as redfaced and petulant as a child is not one of those times.

"No, hey, no!" Vaan says. He draws away from the esper and shakes his head violently. "I don't _want_ you. Come on, bind to someone else!"

The gaze Vaan is gifted with is distinctly amused. Amused on a serpent looks vaguely like it is deciding whether you would taste better dead or alive. Balthier rests one hand on the churl's back, low, where the skin is bare and warm and criss crossed with almost invisible scars; their journey has not been easy for one so untried.

Vaan flits an uneasy glance his way. "How about Penelo?" he asks frantically, "She has, uh, Zeromus, I think. And Cuchulainn."

"We are the Keeper of the Precepts, hume-child, knower of the rights and wrongs of your soul, and by us are you judged worthy." The esper drifts closer still, lowering its head to eye level. "We shall have you, or we shall have none."

"Can we go with the none?" Vaan asks.

"No," Ashe answers tightly, "We shall need this power if we are to protect Dalmasca, Vaan. Accept it." Her arms are crossed over her scant chest, the Tournesol's jaunty sunflower motif hugged to her breast.

The esper rounds like its been stabbed in its tail. Its eyes gleam as darkly as its body shakes ominously; even see-through, Balthier has no illusions about who is in control. "You will not use us," it hisses, the s sounds elongating in its agitation. "To the Occuria we shall never bend head; to their profane rites we hold no quarter. The hume-child alone shall we grant our ear."

"Is it going to hurt?" Vaan asks in a small voice.

Balthier forgets, at times, that seventeen is still very much a child in most parts of the Empire, Dalmasca's disputed heirarchy not withstanding. He himself hadn't been considered an adult until he was 21 and suffocating under a Judge's heavy armor.

Vaan is sand and desert storms, unpredictable and stinging in battle, but he is still very young. "No," Balthier murmurs back, reaching out to squeeze one muscled shoulder, "It shan't hurt a bit."

"I'll do it," Vaan says.

The esper whips around and lifts its fang filled jaws in what Balthier is going to charitably call a grin. "We are Zodiark," it says, "And Zodiark has chosen the hume-child Vaan to be our guide in this world, to summon and use our power as he sees fit."

The sigil unwinds itself in long spools of black ink that dive over Vaan's shoulders even as Zodiark fades from view. Vaan makes a low, startled noise, and Balthier feels the mark write under his fingertips, silky and slick to the touch.

"You're alright," he says, because the boy is clamping his fingers hard against the metal of his pants. "You're doing fine, Vaan. Breathe."

An esper's mark is not precisely painful. Rather, it is an amalgam of uncomfortablely intimate touches, sliding cooly across skin until it can settle where it wants to. Balthier leans away from Vaan slightly, so that he may watch the mark settle.

It is larger than the sigils the others bear, which he supposes is to be expected. Zodiark almost killed Vaan a number of times, beating the boy down only for him to arise, more and more exhausted, with every wave of Ashe's magic. Any esper capable of putting this little party down at this stage of the game was bound to have a showy sigil.

When the sigil has finally settled, it is scrawled across the boy's shoulders. It flirts with the short ends of the boy's hair against the nape of his neck and dives down 'neath his vest only to reemerge on his lower back. Balthier uses a finger to touch the mark where it disappears again, cut off by the edge of the churl's red sash, and finds himself wondering just how far down it goes.

He wants to find out. Preferably by stripping the boy in his bunk and tracing it with his tongue.

"Impressive," he tells Vaan when the boy stops panting like he's going to sob. "Much larger than my own." Chaos had left a mark like an arrow down his spine, the sigil's horns just barely brushing the base of his neck while its end terminated below his shoulder blades.

Vaan gives a shaky laugh. "Really?" he asks, peaking out through his dirty hair.

"Yes, though I am quite certain it is the only thing on your person that would be true of," Balthier says, and steps away from the boy. Time enough to find out just where the sigils ends later, when they are not hundreds of feet below the earth and surrounded by death.

"You can feel it?" Ashe asks. Her own marks suddenly seem less lewd, if only because they are small and powerless in the face of the sheer magicks Vaan's sigil implies. Her small hand covers the one on her bicep with something like envy. Belias has been loyal to his master, but he's not particularly powerful.

"Yeah," Vaan says, frowning, "He's... he's pretty happy. He was alone a long time."

Grand, Balthier thinks. Their orphan has just adopted an orphan. A giant orphan who almost killed them all and then got snotty about it.

"Well then," Balthier says, dusting off his hands, "Shall we leave?"

It's a miserable trek out of the mines, made all the worse because Vaan is in front of him and all Balthier can think about whilst he slays hecteyes is those damnedable sigil marks, stark and crisp against Vaan's dark skin.


	5. Rabanastre

_I didn't have a specific timeline in my head for this piece; it's after they've gone after the Dawn Shard, at any rate. I made up the holiday Vaan is celebrating, though Mrtyu is a real Sanskrit word meaning death. Clever, I know. This part includes pre-Balthier/Vaan as well as mentions of past Penelo/Reks._

* * *

Balthier has learned to listen to his instincts. He has excellent instincts, afterall, and it would be a shame to let them go to waste.

Or so he claims, at least, but if he had listened to his instincts he would have told Vaan no when the churl asked to relax in Rabanastre for a few days.

He blames the damnable lack of foresight on Vaan's... attributes. He keeps this to himself, as he's fairly sure it would make him more pathetic in Fran's eyes than simply losing their resident orphan thief has already made him. As it is, he had been distracted by the sweep of Vaan's hair against dark skin and missed the storm in his eyes and so here they were.

Here is the Sandsea. Vaan is not on the balcony, where Balthier is wont to sit when he wishes for a drink, but there is a pile of pale blond in one corner that Balthier makes a beeline for. Penelo had disappeared along with Vaan; bosom buddies, Balthier had thought at first, and then reluctantly pondered on the likely reasons for two teenagers to creep off into seedy streets.

Thankfully, they are both fully clothed.

Unfortunately, they are both extremely inebriated.

Balthier regards them and sighs. "And how is the weather in here, then, my lushes?"

"Wet," Penelo says brightly. She giggles, her fair hair blending with Vaan's, and waves a bottle of decidely inferior liquor at Balthier's person. "We're celebrating!"

"The Empire is crushing the life from your country; your princess has no way to lay claim to her birthright. What, exactly, are you celebrating?"

Vaan finally glances away from where he has been deeply contemplating his lap to smile blindly. Tearstains are fairly obvious on his face, even in the Sandsea's dim lighting. "I'm older than my brother," Vaan says.

"Your older brother?" Balthier clarifies.

The look Vaan gives him calls his sanity into question. "I don't have a little brother," he says, swinging Penelo's arm up so he can swig from her bottle. "Well, I did, but he died before he got a name, so I'm not talkin' about him."

Balthier rubs at his eyes with the side of one hand. "Then it is Reks?"

"That's what he said!" Penelo squints blearily at him before she reclaims her hand and traps the bottle between her thighs. "So we're celebrating. Can't celebrate by yourself, right?"

"It does seem to be a momentous occasion," he allows. Not one that Balthier personally would celebrate, granted, but Dalmascans are a strange lot with odd customs.

Penelo nods her head; Balthier's very good breeding keeps him from wrinkling his nose when she belches foul enough to bring to mind the undead. "Still not older than mine," she slurs. Her fingernails tap on the glass between her legs. "Got three more years."

Balthier reaches to pluck the bottle from Penelo. It is as dismal a year as he suspected, rot gut made from cactus, if he's not mistaken. His respect for Penelo goes up astronomically; she is not a large girl and yet she is still almost vertical.

"I believe that is quite enough for you, Penelo," he says anyway. There is a difference in being able to hold your alcohol and dying in a filthy street from overindulgence. "Follow my finger please," he continues, and has to sigh expansively when it takes her a good few moments to do so. "Right."

He hauls Penelo up by one skinny arm and ignores Vaan's slow slide from sitting to curled fetal. It is the work of a moment to wave a hand at he barkeep. "You make a habit to allow orphans to drink to excess?" he queries delicately.

The man snorts. "Only on a," and here he says a word that Balthier neither understands nor fully catches, which he takes to mean it is, indeed, a Dalmascan custom, "And only when they can pay. Vaan dumped a couple hunnerd gil at me earlier. Wasn't gonna question it."

Balthier is not a wet nurse, dammit. He is a sky pirate and before that he was a judge magister. That does not stop him from being forced to flag down one of Vaan's merry band of orphans.

"Where's Vaan gonna sleep?" Penelo slurs quietly into his ear.

He pats her on the back. "Where are you sleeping?" he asks.

Blue eyes blink slowly at him. "Migelo's," she manages, "Vaan's not 'llowed to sleep there 'cause he still thinks I'm gonna get a bride price." She giggles again.

Balthier recognizes the child coming towards him with something like a sigh of relief. "Your virtue will be quite safe for the night," he tells her, already turning his mind to the problem of finding Vaan a place where the same could be said for him, and then Penelo laughs.

"Reks took care of that," she snickers loudly enough that the entire bar pauses for a long moment. "Was gonna marry him you know. Gave me turq-" she stutters to a stop with a bemused look until Vaan mutters, "Turquoise," from his spot on the floor.

He had not actually known that. Like most, he had assumed that Vaan and Penelo were paramours quietly blundering their way through adolescent love. "I wasn't aware," he says.

"She always starts talkin' about her engagement gems when she gets drunk," the urchin says with an eye roll. "I'll make sure she gets to Migelo's."

Which leaves him with one drunk street child, staring up at him from the floor with a small, sloppy smile and a wet face. "Yeah," Vaan murmurs, "Everyone thinks she's my girl." He rubs a hand across his mouth and then lets it drop next to his head on the filthy floor.

Balthier sighs and drops to his haunches. Vaan is not as drunk as he took him for, he sees now. The churl is simply hiding his tears in the curve of one arm.

"I don't see the purpose in celebrating something that is clearly making you miserable," Balthier says gently.

"You're Empire," Vaan says into his elbow, "Don't expect you to get it."

It stings rather more than it should. Balthier rocks back on his heels, feeling his face fall into a familiar sneer. "Your first lesson on sky piracy is that a pirate has allegiance to none but themselves," he finds himself saying.

"You still think like where you came from, though." Vaan pushes himself upright and holds out his hand. "Can I have my stuff back?"

"This stuff?" Balthier asks, raising a single brow. He shakes the bottle of rot gut in Vaan's face before dropping it back down to his side with a sigh. "I think, like your small, incredibly inebriated friend, you have had enough for one night, Vaan."

Vaan eyes him again, snorts, and then wipes his nose on the back of his hand. "It's tradition," he says.

"This is one tradition I rather think you can do without."

"Not your choice."

"As I am the one taking you home for the night, I think it has become my choice. Up."

The churl is coordinated enough to reach the moogling, but drunk enough to sick up alcohol all over the cobblestones of the West Gate. It is late and that is the only reason Balthier does not wash his hands of this mess. Instead, he sighs, pats Vaan on the shoulder a few times until he stops retching, and steers him into the Aerodrome with more than a little relief.

There are quarters on the Strahl. He can be done with both this and Fran's silent, icy disapproval in one swoop. Dragging Vaan up the ramp is an exercise in undignified behavior; he is extremely glad there is none around to witness it.

Vaan's quarters are precariously close to the Strahl's magicite cache, but he is the only one who does not complain of her hums in the middle of the night. It has endeared him to Fran, at the very least. She has almost ripped the head from Lady Ashe's shoulders more than once for maligning their fair ship.

He walks Vaan to his berth and sets the boy in it by the simple expediant of dropping his bracing arm and stepping backwards. Vaan's resulting fall into the sheets is decidely graceless, but the humor inherent in it is almost enough to make up for Balthier's evening. Almost.

"Sleep it off," he advises Vaan before he moves to leave. He doesn't know what, precisely, this is about, but he has never met a problem that hasn't looked at least slightly better in the morn.

Vaan makes some sort of rude snuffling noise into his linen. "How old are you?" he calls quietly.

Balthier turns to lean against his girl's bulkhead and finds Vaan staring back at him. "I don't believe it is any of your business," he says.

Vaan draws his hands up to his face. "Reks was seventeen when he died," he says into them. "My parents were thirty-seven."

"A ripe old age," Balthier says and then contemplates shooting himself. His poor departed mother would be horrified at his lack of basic manners. "Apologies," he murmurs in the face of Vaan's wounded eyes. "The hour is late and I am not watching my tongue as I should."

One of Vaan's hands waves away his apology. "It's just," he says, "I never really expected to live this long, you know?"

"I can't imagine why not." Balthier eases back into the room. It is not a large room; the Strahl is a grand mistress, but she was not built for the comfort of guests. His own chambers are spacious. This is decidely not. "You are the epitome of deliberation before action."

Vaan snorts lightly. "Yeah, Reks always said that about me." He thumbs fresh tears out of his eyes with a slow, quiet motion and sighs. "I always figured I'd die before I passed his Mrtyu day."

The words are still slurred, but Balthier has had much time to sort out Vaan's particular lack of enunciation. They mean nothing to him, of course; Dalmasca's native language is notoriously difficult to learn unless one happens to be either Dalmascan or Nabradian. Being neither, and a blue-blooded Archadian to boot, Balthier is hopelessly lost.

Even so, he was under the impression that it was a dying language, even before Archadia invaded. Two plagues in under a decade and a royalty desperately trying to integrate its people enough to draw foreign aid had led to the language's decline.

"I did not know you spoke the language," he says finally.

The impish grin that spreads across Vaan's mouth is at odds with his reddened eyes and cheeks, but Balthier finds himself smiling back all the same. "My parents were traditionalists. It took a while for me to learn Standard when I was a kid, but it's kinda nice now," Vaan says; Balthier finds himself thinking that the churl is strangely eloquent for someone who vomitted in public not thirty minutes prior.

"The Empire doesn't stoop to learning the local language," he continues, "So it's a lot easier to pretend you're a stupid kid who'd never have the guts to steal from them if they think you're just too stupid to learn Standard."

And there is the quiet flash of intelligence that keeps intriguing Balthier so. Given a year or two to mature and find his footing, Vaan will be a formidible sky pirate. If he can be kept alive for that long.

Eighteen today, if Balthier understands this drinking binge correctly. Still very young. He does not contemplate what he was doing and whom he was killing at a similar age. "I am two and twenty," Balthier says.

"Oh."

"Twenty-two, Vaan."

"I knew what you meant," Vaan says crankily. His eyebrows are starting to draw together in pain. There is a skin of water on the table next to his berth. Balthier none so subtly motions to when Vaan begins to massage his skull.

The motion is, incidentally, far too subtle for Vaan. "Why're you swatting imaginary flies?" he asks cluelessly.

Blathier heaves a very long suffering sigh and leans to pick up the water skin. It is full, like he assumed it would be. Vaan is a bundle of insecurity and naivety, but he is not a simpleton; there is always water around their desert children. "Water, Vaan."

"Not yet," Vaan says. He yawns, affording Balthier a spectacular view of the inner workings of his mouth.

"You'll not thank yourself for this tomorrow," Balthier points out.

"No, I know, I just have to do something first." He shoves himself to his feet, lurching slightly, and reaches for the knapsack on the floor. Balthier lays a steadying hand on the churl's shoulder to keep him from falling face first into the Strahl's less than forgiving bulk. "And what is so important?" he asks.

"Gotta eat the-" again, words Balthier can't quite catch "-before new day," he says. The words trip off of Vaan's tongue easily. They still mean nothing to Balthier.

He watches as Vaan triumphantly pulls a earthenware jar painted in gay Rabanastre colors from his bag. When he pulls the stopper, a mild aroma of sweetness fills the little room, but Balthier is more distracted by Vaan dipping a finger and thumb into the jar to fish out a piece of what he is choosing to call fruit.

"Sweetmeat?" Balthier does not watch the way Vaan sucks the juice off his arm. It would be unseemly.

"It's not meat," Vaan says around his mouthful.

Now that Balthier knows Standard isn't the churl's first language, his laughable ignorance is not quite so laughable. "Sweeties," Balthier elaborates.

"Oh, yeah." He swallows his mouthful and tilts the jar in Balthier's direction. "I know you didn't know Reks, but you can have some if you want. Penelo'll be downing them by the jar at Migelo's by now."

How can one turn down that kind of offer? "I shall," he says. The fruit is unfamiliar, but very sweet on his tongue.

Vaan scoops out another handful for himself. "You're supposed to do this with your family," Vaan says lightly, the slightest burr to his words. "'S why me and Penelo were drinking together. She'd have been Reks's if he'd come back from the war."

"I must admit I am entirely ignorant of Dalmascan mourning rituals."

It takes a moment for Vaan to focus back on him; he seems to be in the forlorn stage of inebriation. "Oh," he says dumbly. "It was Reks's favorite, so I'm eating it. I put some on his grave earlier. To apologize for bein' older than him."

"The purpose of your ritual is to apologize for being alive?" Balthier's eyebrows rise as he wipes his hands on his kerchief. A strange people indeed.

"For upsetting the order," Vaan says. He licks at his fingers like a dog licks for scraps. "I'm not supposed to get older than him. You don't want to make Ashlesha mad, so you have to act like it's his birthday by eating his favorite foods and stuff, then say you're sorry. And, anyway, I miss him."

Ashlesha is one of the quaint gods the Dalmascans believe in and the rest of Ivalice does not; if he is not mistaken, Ashelia B'Nargin is named after it. Balthier says nothing for a long moment, listening to Vaan make soft, miserable noises over his food until the jar is empty and Vaan is licking his fingers clean.

"Will you take the water now?" Balthier asks.

He taps Vaan on the chest once, then has to rescue the jar of sweetmeats when Vaan goes unexpectedly backwards, pinwheeling his arms all the way. "It's a good thing this room is small," Balthier observes, "Else you might have damaged that thick skull of yours."

"What'd you do that for?" Vaan explodes from the cot.

"It wasn't my intent," Balthier allows. He sets the empty jar against Vaan's side; the churl's hands curl around it immediately. "Drink your water, Vaan, and go to sleep. I daresay the night has been long and entirely uncomfortable for the both of us."

Just like that, Vaan's expression crumbles into abject misery. Balthier feels rather like he kicked a puppy even if he has no earthy idea why Vaan is suddenly sobbing into his arm in a messy, unattractive manner.

Balthier is rarely speechless. It is a disconcerting turn of events, one that he would much rather do without. "Vaan?" He makes a conscious effert to gentle his voice and hesitantly reaches out for one faintly trembling shoulder.

"I miss him," Vaan says miserably. He hiccups.

Wonderful. "Would you like me to find Penelo?" Balthier ventures.

He is not prepared for Vaan to suddenly twist and sling an arm about his waist.

Balthier takes a long moment to decide if he is dreaming or not, and then takes another, even longer moment to decide what to do about it. He is, after all, the leading man. Not the wet nurse.

Not prepared at all, though he does begin to make the same nonsense soothing noises he remembers his father (may his insanity not be catching, faram) uttering. "Come now," he murmurs, "This is downright uncomfortable, Vaan."

Vaan sniffles loudly against his waistcoat; Balthier is hard pressed to think of anyone else in existance who would dare use hand tooled leather as a snot-rag. "I miss him," he says again, plaintively.

Half of him wants to point out that there is no use crying about what you cannot change, not when you are on a journey to save your country. The larger part of him knows that there is no logic involved in grieving or alcohol and Vaan is decidedly tipsy. Hiding it remarkably well for most of the evening, but tipsy all the same.

"Tell me of your brother," is what he finally settles on. There is snot on his vestaments, which Fran will surely judge him for in the morning, but he finds the idea of her laughing scorn not half as disagreeable as the thought of leaving Vaan alone.

Vaan is silent for a long minute. Balthier pets the back of his head rather like one would a favored hound and tries very hard to ignore the wet he can feel seeping into his waistcoat. "Surely you have much to say of the vaunted Reks?"

A watery snort is his answer. "He was really bossy," Vaan finally mutters.

Balthier settles back to listen.


	6. OgirYensa Sandsea

_Written for the heat stroke square (I changed it to heat exhaustion) of the H/C bingo challenge. Warning for nudity and language. Obviously, it's the Ogir-Yensa chapter._

* * *

Vaan really, really hates the Ogir-Yensa Sandsea.

"Quit your bellyaching," Penelo snaps from behind him. She's huffing and puffing enough that Vaan kind of keeps forgetting she's there and thinks a Seeq's following him instead; she's still sort of pissed off at him about that. "Nobody likes the Sandsea."

Vaan scratches at the back of his neck, rough where his skin's started to peel and the sand's sticking to his sweat. "The Urutan like it," he says defensively.

"And an Urutan, then, are you?" Fran asks.

"Well, no."

"Humes live in Rabanastre, and the Empire behind her," Fran says. She's dejectedly picking sand out of one of her ears when Vaan looks over, but she's doing it so that it looks polite. Kind of. Vaan's pretty sure if he tried the same thing Penelo would hit him over the head and apologize for him having no manners. "To state the obvious is an annoyance I would do without."

Vaan huffs out a breath. "Sorry," he sighs. He takes a swig of his waterskin and then weighs it experimentally in his hand. Probably half a skin left, maybe a little less. They'll have to fill up soon.

He's gotten pretty good at conjuring water out of the air, but it always tastes like dust and kind of fishy. Gross.

"Stop making faces," Penelo says. Vaan turns around and tucks his hands behind his head so he can pull another, more horrible face at her until she sighs and says tiredly, "Your face is going to stick that way, Vaan, and then you'll never be a sky pirate."

Fran nods her head. "Quickly remembered, are unsightly sky pirates, and so as quickly hung."

"Dalmasca doesn't hang pirates," Vaan points out reasonably. "What?" he asks when he receives two flat stares. "They don't!"

"No, we behead them."

"Not particularly well either." Vaan remembers watching one of those back before the Empire came. Not a pretty sight; it took three strikes before the guy stopped screaming and another two before his head actually came clean off. He shrugs. "It hasn't happened in a long time."

Nobody feels like pointing out that it's because the Empire came and Dalmasca wasn't allowed to have capital punishment anymore. Vaan shrugs again and rocks back on his heels. It's hot out here, but not like it is in the Estersands, or even the Westersands. It's kind of sticky hot. Makes it easier to pull water, but it's really, really gross, even standing around in the shade.

He's pretty sure the metal walkways don't help, but try telling that to Ashe. She'd bitten his head off when he suggested taking a break down on the ground level; the lizards were stupid lookin', it wasn't like they were gonna suddenly come after them if they decided to take a break down on the ground, where it was shady and cool.

Speak of the queen, Vaan thinks morosely. She's hauling herself to her feet again, smoothing down her skirt and shaking sand out of her hair. "Break time is over," she says.

Balthier catches his eye when he wobbles. Vaan takes another absentminded sip of his water while he watches and almost chokes himself when he realizes that while the back of Balthier's neck is bright red, his shirt isn't see through yet.

In fact, it doesn't even look wet.

Vaan eyes Balthier's clothes then looks up at the sun. It's half-set, another hour or two of sunlight, easy, before they have to make their way by feystone light, but that's not gonna help much out here.

It doesn't feel like the temperature drops like it does in the Westersands. Too muggy. More like Giza during the rains, where it's still hot even though it's wet and kind of gross. They probably won't get much use out of the fire magicite they've got stowed in their packs.

"Pen?" he whispers.

She shoves her bangs out of her face and sighs. "What, Vaan?"

"Is Balthier sweating?"

Penelo's head snaps up and around so she can stare hard at Balthier. Vaan waits patiently, plodding along behind Basch and stealing looks at Balthier every step or two. The more he stares the more sure he is that Balthier's not sweating at all.

That's not good.

"No," Penelo finally says, "He's not."

They exchange a look.

"I'll tackle Ashe and Basch if you want to deal with his snootiness," Penelo offers. "That way you'll have Fran to help you cool him off."

"Why do I have to do it?"

Penelo stops and puts her hands on her hips. "I know it escapes your notice a lot of the time, Vaan," she says his name in the exact same tone that Reks used to when he did something stupid, which makes him cringe, "But I'm a girl. Balthier's Empire, you can hear it in his voice."

"So?" Vaan scratches his eyebrow.

"So he's not going to want a girl stripping him naked!"

"Fran's gonna see it anyway, what's the big deal if another girl's there?"

"Fran's his partner," Penelo snaps. "They're probably intimate anyway."

"An erroneous assumption," Fran says mildly. She's suddenly right there, flicking her ears and twitching her nose. She's so weird. "You are discussing the best way to make Balthier see reason?"

"Yeah," Vaan says. "Well, that, and which one of us has to peel him out of his pants." Balthier calls him an idiot, but he's not the one who decided to wear leather pants in the desert.

Fran's outfit is kind of ridiculous too, but at least she's taking care of herself. It's kind of funny to watch her pour water on her ears, though.

"Shy as a hare without his accouterment," Fran says. Her mouth curves into a half smile. "Vaan? You will help?"

Vaan blows out a breath. "Fine," he says.

Vaan's pretty sure it's not a good sign that Balthier doesn't even seem to notice them splitting up. He makes one last rude gesture at Penelo's back before he holds out an arm to bar the way.

Balthier runs smack into it. "Apologies," he huffs breathlessly.

Yeah, that's not a good sign either. Vaan catches Balthier's hand when he goes to walk by; it's dry and way too hot.

"Have you ever been out in the desert before?" Vaan demands.

"I'm in the desert now," Balthier says peevishly.

"Yeah," Vaan says, "I can see that." It's probably not nice to laugh, but nobody's ever accused Vaan of being nice and lived to tell the tale (well, except Penelo), so Vaan lets his laughter bubble free.

He ends up doubled over with one hand on his knee and the other still clutching on to Balthier's.

Balthier blinks a few times before his face twitches. "Vaan," he says, "Why are you grasping at my person?"

It's kind of cute, Vaan decides, and pulls Balthier's hand up to his face. "You aren't sweating," he says bluntly. His skin's even hotter against Vaan's cheek.

"Come again?"

"You are addled," Fran says. She puts a hand on Balthier's shoulder and firmly steers him towards the ramp that'll lead them down to the sandsea. "Follow quietly now, Balthier."

Shade, Vaan thinks longingly, and follows behind, still holding Balthier's hand. If he's not going to ask for it back, Vaan doesn't see why he should offer it. Besides, this way if Balthier falls, Vaan can just use that hand to pull him along.

He's not going to pick the guy up, he thinks mutinously. It's bad enough that he's going to have to strip him with _Fran_ standing there judging him in her weird Viera way.

"Do not dawdle," Fran says.

"I'm not dawdling," Vaan says, hanging back and staring around, "I'm trying to find the best place to do this. There's no water around."

"That shall be my onus."

"I wish you guys wouldn't use words you know I don't know."

He catches the edge of Fran's smile out of the corner of his eye.

Vaan pushes Balthier into the nearest patch of shade that seems like it might be cooler than burning. He does stoop to touch his hand to the sand after a second though, 'cause he might not be thrilled about this, but he still doesn't want Balthier to end up with sand-scald on his butt.

It's really creeping him out how quiet Balthier is being. He knows what heat sicknesses does to people, but it's still kind of weird.

"I don't suppose you can take off all your clothes by yourself?" Vaan asks helplessly.

Balthier stares up at him like that mooncalf the Imperials killed a few months back. Vaan had always had a soft spot for that guy, so he pats Balthier on the head and sighs. "I want lessons," he says, "Lots of lessons on how to fly your ship."

"This I pledge," Fran says.

"Good."

He decides he should probably start on the shoes. They're almost as ridiculous as his pants in the desert anyway. Vaan has to be gentle peeling them off his heels because those are _definitely_ sand-scalded; they're hanging out of Balthier's stupid shoes.

Balthier's feet are as hot, red, and sweatless as his hands were. The heartbeat Vaan can feel in Balthier's ankle is still strong and already starting to even out, though, so they caught it early. That's good. Stuff like this can go bad really quick.

Water splashes across his hands and Balthier's feet. The air feels drier immediately but Vaan knows his desert sicknesses, so he doesn't complain about it. He just stares up at Balthier's waist and sighs.

"Do you have any suggestions?" he asks.

He can feel Fran shrug behind him. "Do not get them wet," she advises. "Balthier always fusses so after we trek through water."

"Do not _fuss_," Balthier mumbles.

Vaan pauses with his hands on Balthier's waistband and figures this can go very bad, very quickly. "Uh, hey," he says loudly, "I'm, um, going to take off your pants now. I promise I'm not going to do anything weird."

He starts to peel the pants down before he can over think this. Peel's the right word for it and it takes him a lot longer than he'd like, but he manages after a couple of excruciating minutes. Balthier is a lot hairier than he would have pegged him for.

The pants are off. "You want to soak him while I get his shirt off?"

"The vest zips," Fran offers.

Vaan happily glues his eyes to that and not Balthier's feeble hand waving and mutterings. "Thanks," he says.

It's the work of moments to get the rest of Balthier's clothes off. He has to fend off Balthier's hands a few times and once he catches Balthier looking at him like he's suddenly turned into a chocobo. He gets Balthier turned onto his side and ignores it.

Or tries to.

"Fran," Balthier pronounces carefully. "There is a chocobo abducting my vestments."

"It's really creepy that you're suffering from heat sickness and can _still_ use words I don't know," Vaan says.

He squats down in front of Balthier while Fran chuckles and soaks them both, again. His waterskin is still half-full, give or take a sip, so he slides a hand under Balthier's head, ignores his nattering about chocobos, and forces water down his throat.

"Drink," he says, belatedly, when one of Balthier's hands come up to circle around the neck of the waterskin.

They're going to be here for another few hours, at least. Maybe even until nightfall. Vaan ignores the next wave of water that hits him in the chest and stares down at Balthier's skin. "He's going to be so sunburned," he says.

The image of Balthier _peeling_ is almost enough to make Vaan laugh again. He settles for pulling the waterskin back before Balthier can make himself throw up.

"You'll be okay," Vaan tells him, and then has to add, "The next time you say I'm an idiot savant or whatever it is you call me when you think I can't hear you, I'm going to remind you about this."

Balthier squints up at him and says, "It's meant as a compliment, for the most part."

"Yeah, right." Vaan stretches out his legs and waits for the sun to go down.


	7. Salikawood

_I'm sorry it's taken so long to update this fic. If it's any consolation, I have roughly six parts of this that I'm working on at the moment. This is for the Salikawood, despite the fact that half of it takes place in the Phon Coast._

* * *

Balthier has to restrain himself from crowing in delight when Vaan chooses to wander down one of the half-rotted roads of the Salikawood. The churl is a far sight better company than the Princess when she falls into one of her frequent moods, but he is almost. Never. Silent. Everything is new to him, from the lush green of the Highwastes to the crumbling grandeur of Raithwall's tomb.

Blessed silence reigns for a moment in the forest; Fran rests against a nearby tree trunk as Balthier cleans his weapon. She has a single ear cocked towards where Vaan has vanished.

The slight squish of fumbling footsteps causes him to tense, though Fran just shoots him an amused glance. He will admit to an unreasonable hatred of the pumpkin heads that roam the Salikawood. It turns out to be a simple wyrdhare, though, squealing with fright as it sprints away with all due haste.

"Faint-hearted, the hare does jerk at every hushed noise," Fran says.

Balthier drops his cloth back into his pouch with a sigh and holsters his gun. "Does it ever bother you that you share auditory anatomy with the creatures you so malign?"

"No."

"I thought all chocobos were supposed to be really violent," Vaan calls suddenly from around the bend.

"All but the yellow," Balthier affirms. He is well versed in the boy's random thoughts by now. They are so common place they fail to elicit even a question any longer.

"Okay," Vaan says, in a peculiar tone of voice that has both his and Fran's heads snapping up and around to where the churl has disappeared. Vaan rounds the bend a scant second later, holding one hand behind him as he coaxes something into following.

Balthier closes his eyes for a long moment as he mentally lists the many, many reasons taking a novice adventurer along could very well get them killed. Not the least of which included an idiotic Dalmascan rat-killer stroking the beak of a large brown chocobo with apparent affection.

"Okay," Vaan says again, "So why's this one so friendly?"

He was going to force the churl to read the Clan Primer as soon as they reached the Hunter's Camp. Or perhaps send him off with Basch and Ashe the next time they chose groups. He would like to see the reactions of their princess in the face of such rampant stupidity.

(He ignores the simple fact that he would not _trust_ Vaan to the care of Ashe and her knight; Basch's attention is ever and always on his princess, his blows meant to keep her safe from harm, even to the detriment of others. Penelo fares well with them because she is a mage, outside the range of melee weapons. Vaan would not be so lucky.)

"Stupid child," Fran hisses as she draws her bow from her shoulder.

"Now, Fran," Balthier begins, slowly raising his hands to his weapon, "There's no cause to shoot Vaan." His eyes are affixed to the hand Vaan is using to scratch the brown feathers about the base of the chocobo's beak. He rather hopes the boy won't lose that hand; they're damn hard to re-attach with nothing but a cure spell and a prayer.

"Huh?" Vaan draws his brows together, clucking at the bird, before he looks up enough to notice the two weapons pointed at the rather large chocobo leaning placidly against his side. "What? Hey, no! It's not doing anything to us!"

"Chocobos are dangerous," Balthier says slowly, as if for a small child, "Especially those that aren't yellow."

"It stinks of feces," Fran agrees. Her delicate nose rumples with distaste. "Feces. And mist. It is not safe."

"I know people who smell like this," Vaan sulks, tugging lightly on one of the bird's blue-tipped feathers. Balthier holds his breath when it opens its beak, but it only utters a contented sound instead of taking the churl's hand clean off. One should always be thankful for small miracles. "Come on, it's not that bad. He just smells kind of like—"

"He rolled about in his excrement," Balthier interrupts. He raises his eyebrows at Vaan and considers his chances of hitting the bird somewhere vital without rending a hole in Vaan as well. Not good. "I don't know what kind of people you keep company with, but I certainly wouldn't travel with them."

Fran has a clear shot. He cocks his head at her while he kept Vaan's, and the chocobo's, eyes on him. It will be better for all concerned if they did this as quickly as possible.

Vaan is a thief though, quick hands and lightning speed, and reacts far quicker than Balthier would have given him credit for. His sudden movement as he jerks between them and the beast startles the chocobo into hissing violently at everyone.

"He's not doing anything," Vaan insists. This is clearly not the case, Balthier thinks as it continues to make low hissing sounds. "Maybe we could ride him to Archades?"

Ignoring the logistics of placing two humes and a vierra onto a single, feral chocobo proves hard, but he refrains from commenting with great difficulty. Instead, he chooses to say, "Vaan. You cannot take that monster into Archades," though appealing to Vaan's sensibilities is a dicey game even on their best days.

Vaan's mouth opens to protest. "And you are certainly not taking the beast aboard the _Strahl_," Balthier says before Vaan can suggest such a thing.

Fran returns her arrow to its quiver and regards the boy and chocobo for a long moment. "Best to leave it where it is," she says softly, "Away from its forest it could be only miserable."

Balthier cannot say whether it is the honest knowledge in Fran's voice or the chocobo's abrupt movement to scratch its head with one giant foot that convinces Vaan it is best to simply drop it. He rather suspects it is the close call with the talons on the bird's feet.

"Alright," Vaan finally says. He gives the chocobo's head one final rub before telling the bird, "You should get out of here."

Surprisingly enough, the chocobo does just that, wandering off with unhurried footsteps. It stops once to nuzzle Vaan's chest with its massive beak, giving Balthier nightmares of being forced to replace the churl's entrails with nothing but a cure spell, a handful of potions, and his cranky vierra partner.

Vaan grumbles the entire way to the Camp and demands the Clan Primer once they've arrived.

Balthier manages to contain his scathing commentary on the mental maturity of Dalmascan orphans when it is returned with the words "Brown Not Dangerous" scrawled in wobbling childish letters over the page about the dangers of wild chocobos.

Still.

He pays the outrageous price for a tame chocobo while they are at the camp, taking the reins from the greedy little moogle's paws.

He ignores the knowing glance Fran sends him when he tugs the creature towards their sulking desert child. "You've a soft spot for strays," she tells him as she follows, no doubt to watch the show.

"I am driving home a lesson," Balthier states loftily. His hands clench on the reins. "Nothing more, Fran."

"Of course," she says, "And it is readily made with bribery, your point."

"It isn't a bribe."

"A token, then, of your remorse."

"I've done naught to apologize for!"

"Why're you yelling?" Vaan asks. He is sprawled in the shade of a palm tree, boots off and toes in the water. There is a black mood hanging over his head even as he twirls a blue-tipped brown feather between his fingers. How he manages to avoid snagging it in the articulated plates of his gauntlet is a mystery.

Balthier clears his throat pointedly at Fran until she stops smirking behind her claws. "It's no matter," he states, "A misunderstanding."

"Like you thinking all chocobos are dangerous." Vaan tucks the feather somewhere about his person, though where Balthier has no idea. The feather is not precisely small. "What are you doing with that one?"

"The question is: what are _you_ going to do with it?" Balthier taps Vaan's shoulder with the free end of the reins until the churl takes them from him, then steps back and rests his hands on his belt.

There is a particular itch between his shoulders that he has come to know means Fran is laughing at him behind his back. He ignores it as best he can. "This is a yellow chocobo," he says, "You may ride _this_ beast, and no others."

"You're going to let me ride?" Vaan hauls himself to his feet by using the chocobo's reins. It is a placid bird, enough so that it doesn't object to the rough handling of its mouth, and even offers a friendly noise of greeting when Vaan is eye to eye.

"Come now, you've ridden before," says Balthier.

Vaan only has eyes for the chocobo. "I get him to myself?"

"No sharing required," Balthier says, "At least for the next hour."

The sunny smile Vaan bestows on him is enough to make his heart flutter, damn it to hell.

"It seems you are forgiven," Fran murmurs lowly. He doesn't know why she bothers. Vaan is struggling mightily to reach the chocobo's back; he'll not hear a word they say.

"I maintain that I have done nothing that needed forgiveness," Balthier says, and watches Vaan fall from the chocobo, laughing like a lunatic.

"So you say." She makes a low, considering noise then says, "I go to practice magicks with Penelo. This spectacle is not nearly so absorbing of my attentions, despite your captivation."

Balthier makes a dismissive noise. "Please, Fran," he says, but she has already walked away from him.

It takes a few more tries until Vaan manages to reach the chocobo's back more or less gracelessly. "All right, then?" Balthier asks. He steadies Vaan when he wobbles. Vaan's skin is very warm against his palm.

When he lets go, Vaan leans forward on the chocobo in a way that is not entirely safe and grins. "Hey, Balthier," he says, impish smile firmly in place as he extends a hand, "Want a ride?"

Damn it all. He looks up at Vaan, backlit by the sun and grinning fit to burst, pale hair smeared to a halo of light. He is a monochrome thing on the chocobo, his skin the same pale gold as the underside of its feathers and his pants blending with the blue tassels on the its helm.

_Yes, I would like a ride_, Balthier thinks, vulgar enough that his long dead mother would be ashamed, _And that is precisely the problem._

Seventeen is older than sixteen, enough to be a man, a Judge Magister in Archades. Seventeen is adulthood in Archades and Dalmasca both, and yet compared to twenty-two it is so very young. Balthier keeps his thoughts behind his tongue where they belong and simply shakes his head. "Your time is ticking, Vaan," he says, "You've forty minutes left, at best. Do try to get my money's worth from the beast."

"Suit yourself," Vaan says.

"I always do," Balthier responds.

He leans against the nearby tree and watches as Vaan races the chocobo about, laughing as he chases Penelo or Basch or even Ashe to and fro, though he shows the good sense to leave Fran be. Penelo giggles helplessly when she slips in the sand; Ashe turns the tables and gives chase, shouting incomprehensibly whilst waving the Sword of Kings at Vaan's back with both hands. Her face is not nearly so dark as it has been since their little tête-á-tête.

Through it all, Vaan simply laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

Balthier tells himself he purchased the beast to silence any grumblings, and tries to ignore the feelings Vaan's laughter engenders.


	8. Salikawood Revisited Raithwall Sequel

_I didn't want to publish this by itself since it's so short, but I couldn't seem to make it longer. Sorry! This follows in the same "verse" as the Tomb of Raithwall chapter. I might later remove these two and publish them as a seperate story, because they take place in a completely different univesere than the rest of them (as does the Estersand chapter; my Vaan and Balthier are more into the whole pining thing than they are into being intelligent)._

* * *

Vaan still carries pocketfuls of sand wherever he goes. Balthier finds it on the _Strahl_ at the strangest times, between the strangest places. He has stepped on it with bare feet as he crosses his personal berth at night, sat in it while piloting his Lady, and slipped in it while following in Vaan's footsteps in Archades.

"Is it a good luck charm?" Balthier asks, rubbing one palm against the skin of Vaan's belly, full touch and comforting. There is yet more grit. It is easier to focus on that than on what, precisely, he is doing. "A way to keep your home with you, perhaps?"

Under the fingertips of his other hand, the hideous burn on Vaan's thigh mends enough that the boy will be able to put weight on it within the hour. They've just trekked through the Salikawood, on their way to a fool's errand in the Deadlands.

How is it that their resident intrepid pirate in training is _still_ covered in detriment from the desert?

"Don't know what you're talking about," Vaan offers. He tests out his leg with a grimace.

Balthier wipes the ruined skin and fluid from his hands with a handkerchief. If there is a faint tremor in his palms, none but Vaan are around to see it. "The accursed sand," Balthier says once he is sure his hands are as clean as they'll get without water and good Archadian soap.

"The sand? It's not just me, you know. It gets _everywhere._" Vaan scratches lightly at the new pink skin on his thigh. He is using his ragged fingernails to peel away long flakes of burned flesh.

There is a very fascinating pile of ashes two meters away from their current position that demands Balthier's full attention. The Bomb Queen they slew was full of wonderful surprises, even after death. "I daresay everyone else manages to _bathe_ on occasion."

"I scrubbed down two days ago," Vaan protests. There is a sound not unlike a zombie falling to pieces and Vaan lets out a long sigh. "There, I'm done. You can look at me again."

"You missed multiple spots," Balthier says.

Vaan's face scrunches as he inspects his thigh again.

"Dirt, Vaan, not dead skin."

Vaan shrugs one shoulder before he leans back on both of his hands. His face is still twisted slightly in pain, his movements slightly jerky. It had been… much closer than Balthier is comfortable contemplating.

Fran is scouting ahead with the rest of their party, checking for more ill surprises. They can't afford to be caught flat footed like this if they are to travel the Deadlands.

"We gotta stop fighting elemental monsters," Vaan sighs.

Balthier reaches out to touch the tips of his sun-bleached hair. It's dry and brittle, ragged and abused from too long in the field and one too many close calls with a fire spell gone rogue. It is, of course, also full of sand.

Vaan leans into his hand and Balthier finds he does not regret the sand and blood beneath his cracked nails.

"Refrain from allowing monsters to set your person alight again, if you please," Balthier says as lightly as he can. "I'm growing to detest the smell of you broiling."

"At least there was no oil involved this time."


End file.
